So Mitchell had consulted their own Special Branch superintendent, thought Audley. A very thorough young man, Mitchell ... in his place he would have done exactly the same, because Cox's memory was encyclopaedic. But it was still another score to Mitchell that he had known exactly who dummy5
to go to for first-hand information.
He stared at the memorial. It not only looked new, it was new: he could see the fragments of fresh mortar trampled into the grass around it.
He pointed. 'How long has this been here? Not long?'
'A month. Wherever they do a re-enactment the Double R
people always set aside some of their profits for a memorial if there isn't one already there. It's part of their public relations,' said Mitchell. 'Are we going to see Weston and the sergeant now?'
A thorough young man. ... He took in the inscription again. It summed up very well the sad plight of the moderate man pushed at last by the extremists to take his stand, and discovering then that he had delayed too long and that the only chance left to him was to join one hated side or the other.
Like—who was it? The man had also had a memorial dedicated to him, on, a battlefield of this same Civil War where he had fallen, he remembered having seen it years before.
'Are we going to see Weston?' Mitchell repeated.
Who was it? It suddenly became important to Audley to dredge the name out of his memory, as though it was the key to other forgotten things. Mitchell wouldn't have forgotten, damn him.
Not John Hampden. He had a memorial somewhere—at dummy5
Charlgrove, where Prince Rupert and the Royalists had killed him. But Hampden had been a Parliamentarian.
This man had been a Royalist . . . and a poet—
Little Falkland, with his ugly face and his shrill voice; but everyone had loved him for his kindness and his generosity and his learning. . . . And when the last hope of a negotiated peace had vanished and he had understood at last that whoever won, the moderates on each side had lost, he had saddled up and joined the King's cavalry and had calmly and deliberately ridden to certain death.
Suicide while the balance of the mind was undisturbed.
But not a mistake that David Audley would make.
'This quotation—' he looked at Mitchell '—who's it from?
Falkland?'
'No.' Mitchell eyed him curiously. 'Why d'you ask?'
'Because I want to know. Not Falkland?'
'No.' Mitchell stared at the memorial. 'It could have been at that, I suppose. . . . But actually it was William Waller, the Parliamentary general. He was writing to old Sir Ralph Hopton before they fought each other at Landsdown—they'd been comrades years before in the German wars—'
'I remember.' Audley nodded. Surprisingly he did remember, too: Hopton had written first, hoping to win over his old friend, or at least to win time. And Waller had rejected his overture, but in the' noblest terms—
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With what a hatred I detest this war without an enemy . . .
He felt his confidence begin to flow again, diffusing inside him like the warmth of a hot drink on a freezing day. Mitchell was a very thorough young man, as he had proved again this minute. But that was a virtue to be used, not to be feared.
'Right. I shall now see Superintendent Weston and the sergeant.' He didn't want either of them with him down there beside the Swine Brook: each would put him off his stroke, though in very different ways. But in any case they would be better employed elsewhere. 'By myself.'
They looked at him questioningly, and that was good.
'When does the—the Double R Society fight its next battle?'
'Easingbridge, the day after tomorrow —Saturday,' said Mitchell promptly. 'They're putting on a performance at the annual fete and flower show. Do you want us to be there?'
'Can you get a horse in time?'
Mitchell shrugged. 'If you pushed me —I guess so.'
'I'm pushing.' Audley turned to Frances. 'And you must be there too.'
'No problem.' She nodded readily. 'All I need is a costume.'
'Good. . . . Now, in the meantime, Frances, I want you to research the Roundhead—ah—''
'Wing.' Mitchell supplied the word.
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'The Roundhead Wing. And particularly how Mr. Charlie Ratcliffe fits into it. But don't be too obvious with the questions.' He swung back to Mitchell. 'And you, Paul—'
'Let me guess. Would a ton of gold be close?'
'Close enough. What d'you know about it?'
